A wedding keepsake box is a small box designed for you to keep mementos and keepsakes from your wedding safe so that whenever you like, you can look back on your wedding in a more immersive way. But wedding keepsake boxes are only so big, so how do you decide what to put in yours?
The best things to put in a wedding keepsake box are wedding memorabilia, like a written version of your wedding vows, a piece of your wedding dress and a copy of your marriage certificate. You can also add your old love letters, wedding invitations, and even bridal bouquet charm.
What else can you put in a wedding keepsake box? In this blog, we’ve compiled some of these things that are truly worth keeping. Read on.
WHAT IS A WEDDING KEEPSAKE BOX?
A wedding keepsake box is where you put your wedding mementos. It’s like a photo album, except it contains so much more than photos alone. It is like a diary, but instead of words narrating your wedding, you can actually see and touch and relive your big day.
Weddings are one of the most memorable events in one’s life. It’s wonderful, mesmerising and somewhat as dreamy as a fairy tale. Your wedding day is the day you do not want to ever forget—one that you would like to keep alive in some way in your memory box.
A wedding keepsake box is a time travel machine: Once you open the box, instantly, you are a bride or groom again, faced with actual, tangible things present during your wedding day. A wedding keepsake box fuels your imagination and ignites your memory of the most beautiful day of your life.
WHY SHOULD YOU HAVE A WEDDING KEEPSAKE BOX?
It’s important to have a wedding keepsake box for you and your partner to have visual reminders of the big day. Being able to pick up and smell things you had at your wedding make for powerful keepsakes. You’ll also be able to share your wedding with future kids more easily.
Keeping a wedding keepsake box lets you reminisce about your wedding day. It reminds you how magical your big day was. It also lets you preserve important items from the wedding.
A wedding keepsake box serves as a symbol of love between you and your partner. It is a reminder of the day you both committed your lives to each other. Whenever you want to reminisce on your commitment to each other, you can open the box and be reminded of the love that you share.
If you decide to have children, a keepsake box full of wedding mementos will allow you to share the big day with them in a way that photos just cannot.
WHAT TO PUT IN YOUR WEDDING KEEPSAKE BOX
The best things to put in your wedding keepsake box are small, significant things like cards with your vows written on them, wedding invitations, developed photos from the event or mementos from the place you held the wedding or had your honeymoon.
If you are having a hard time choosing what to put inside your box, here are a few tips:
- Choose something small and lightweight – You want a standard-sized box, which you can easily store anywhere inside your house. Therefore, make sure that whatever you put inside does not take much space. The smaller your items are, the more you can put inside.
- Pick non-biodegradable items – You are going to keep your box for a really long time, that’s why it is only reasonable that you do not put anything that quickly spoils or rot. So, no, you can’t put a slice of your wedding cake inside.
- Find non-essential items – Non-essential means that you will not need to use them often. A wedding keepsake box is meant to be stored and not opened. It is closed all the time. So, whatever you will put inside should be meant to just be kept and not to be used often.
- Pick things that are clean – Make sure that all items are clean and sanitised before putting them in your box. In that way, you can be certain that they will not be a breeding ground for germs and bacteria.
Below are 15 examples of things that you can put in your wedding keepsake box that will fill you with joy every time you open it.
1. Wedding Vows
The exchange of wedding vows is one of the best highlights of a wedding day. It is a public declaration of your love and commitment to each other. Therefore, it deserves a space in your wedding keepsake box.
You can make a timeless love letter to one another by having your wedding vows written or printed on a sheet of paper. Put it in an envelope or a scroll and re-read them every time you open your wedding keepsake box.
2. Piece of Your Wedding Dress
What piece of your wedding dress should you include in your keepsake box? It could be a strap, a ribbon or even a cut piece of cloth from your wedding dress. However, be sure to take a piece of your wedding dress without ruining the actual dress, especially if you only borrowed or rented the dress.
3. Copy of Your Marriage Certificate
A marriage certificate is proof that you are married. It’s not the same as the ceremonial marriage certificate typically given to you on the day of the wedding.
Having a copy of the certificate in your keepsake box is evidence of you and your partner tying the knot and making it official. But never keep the original copy inside the box because you might need it. You can simply have your marriage certificate copied and keep the copy inside your box.
4. Ring Box
What is a wedding without a ring? It symbolises your love, commitment and oneness as a married couple. During the wedding, a pretty little vessel, the ring box, safely stores your rings as they get transported down the aisle.
What happens to a ring box after the wedding? You will be wearing your rings on your fingers, so the box will probably be left lying around. You can keep your wedding ring box inside your wedding keepsake box to remind you of the moment you take your vows while putting the ring on your partner’s finger.
5. Accessories Worn On Your Wedding Day
Any wedding has a set of special accessories that make the occasion more memorable. Whether it’s something new or something borrowed, it holds meaning. A great choice is your jewellery, which completes your wedding look. When carefully chosen to fit your dress and wedding theme, jewellery will make you stand out and shine.
To complete the wedding attire in your keepsake box, put in some small accessories you had worn during your wedding— jewellery, cufflinks, veil, pocket square and boutonnieres. If you can’t get enough of your flower crown or any headpieces you wore, a keepsake box is also a great way to preserve them.
6. Old Love Letters
Your wedding keepsake box also symbolises your love as a couple, so why not put your old love letters inside?
Sure, most of your love letters were written way before your wedding day, but aren’t they part of the beginning of your journey as lovers? Just imagine in the future when you are rereading those letters from the start-up to your wedding vows. It is like reading a book about your love for each other. Your children can also read these letters and become inspired by their parents’ love.
7. Bridal Bouquet Charms
One Australian wedding tradition is to give the bride a good luck charm for her wedding. The most common wedding good luck charm is the bridal bouquet charm. Commonly put in the bride’s wedding bouquet, a bouquet charm is not just for good luck but as an added decoration.
You can find several shops in Australia with beautiful bridal good luck charms for sale. You may not be able to put your easily wilting bouquet inside your wedding keepsake box, but you can put your bridal bouquet charms.
8. A Wedding Invitation
Twenty or more years after your wedding, would you still remember where, when and what time was your wedding day? How about the names of your entourage? Keeping one of your wedding invitations in your keepsake box is a great idea for you to remember those details.
A wedding invitation is also one of the easiest to keep as it is printed on paper. It’s a tangible wedding stuff from your wedding that will last long after you’ve eaten your cake or the flower bouquet has wilted.
9. Wedding Bouquet Petals
We hear you. You badly want to include your wedding bouquet in your wedding keepsake box, but the problem is that the flowers easily wilt. We have a solution for that. Dry and preserve the petals. Then you’ll have a piece of that beautiful bouquet forever intact to remind you of how wonderful your wedding day was.
Choose which part of the bouquet you want to keep. The best option is the beautiful petals. You can have these petals preserved through several techniques, such as drying, waxing, and putting in resin or glass frames.
10. Wedding Cake Topper
Again, you can’t put your wedding cake inside the box. While others freeze a part of their wedding cake so they can eat it on their one year anniversary, the cake won’t have the same quality as it does on your wedding day.
What you can put in your wedding keepsake box as part of your cake is your wedding cake topper. This can symbolically stand for your cake, minus the staling part. The most common wedding toppers are figurines of the bride and groom, doves or love birds.
11. Bridal Horseshoes & Other Keepsakes
Another common wedding tradition is a bridal horseshoe. Children traditionally give a bridal horseshoe to brides right after the ceremony. The horseshoe is a charm that is said to bring fertility to the bride. It is not an ordinary horseshoe, though. It is a store-bought and customised bridal horseshoe.
Bridal horseshoes are a common wedding tradition here in Australia and there are many places to buy bridal horseshoes, making it far more common than other wedding traditions, like being showered with rice. If you are given a bridal horseshoe or any other similar keepsakes during your wedding, your wedding keepsake box is the best place to store them.
12. Honeymoon Mementos
A wedding keepsake box may also contain some items from your honeymoon. Besides, a honeymoon is a couple’s way of celebrating their oneness right after the wedding.
Examples of honeymoon mementos you can keep would be a plane ticket or a map to your honeymoon destination, a rock or a vial of sand if you spent your honeymoon near the beach or a token from your hotel room. Whatever reminds you of your honeymoon, keep it in your box.
13. Table Place Cards
On your special day, table place cards help your guests know their particular seats at the table during the reception. This helps avoid confusion and account for your guest list.
More than these, the table place cards represent all your guests at your wedding. When added to a keepsake box, they will remind you that you have chosen to share your wonderful day with these incredible people. They were your witnesses.
14. Wedding Favours
Wedding favours are more than a wedding tradition. Giving away wedding favours is a way of thanking your guests for celebrating with you on such a momentous event, and it gives them a lasting memory of that day.
Wedding favours have changed over the years and are now as interesting and adventurous as the couple being married are. There’s no rules on what can be a wedding favour, anything from customised shot glasses to small plants make for unique wedding favours, and will be a talking point for your wedding for years.
But wedding favours are not only for your guests. Why not keep some for yourself and put them in your box? In that way, you will have the same wedding token as your guests that will remind you of your big day for years to come.
15. Your Something Old, New, Borrowed & Blue
Last but definitely not the least are the classics and wedding must-haves: your something new, something old, something borrowed and something blue. These traditional wedding accessories may include an accessory, lingerie, a ribbon or anything that brings meaning.
If they are small enough to fit your box, keep them inside.
WHERE TO BUY YOUR WEDDING KEEPSAKE BOX
If you are looking for a wedding keepsake box that will look beautiful and last a lifetime, a RK Personalised made in Australia is the perfect choice. These beautiful boxes can be custom designed with anything you like, making it the only way to store keepsakes of your special day.
One of the biggest issues with wedding keepsakes is finding an appropriate place to keep them. If you are storing mementos from the happiest day of your life, do you really want to keep it in a dusty cardboard box in a cupboard?
What makes a RK Personalised the perfect way to store your wedding keepsakes is that it will keep them safe and close by, as these boxes are customisable and look amazing displayed. A custom Gift Box can be made engraved with your names, a photo of the couple or a scene from the wedding that holds sentimental value, like a water fountain that you had your first kiss in front of.
A Gift Box can find a home anywhere in your house, from display shelves to mantle pieces; you could even have it in the middle of your table, so reminders of your wedding are always within reaching distance. What’s more, having your wedding keepsake box nearby means that you can add to it on your wedding anniversary, making it a living museum to your ongoing love. They are the perfect way to proudly store and display all the mementos from your wedding that you’d want to keep nearby.
RELATED QUESTIONS
How to Decorate a Wedding Keepsake Box?
If you have a creative flair, you can decorate your keepsake box with paintings, photos or signatures of people who attended the wedding. If you are looking for something more professional, you can get a custom engraving on a personalised wedding keepsake box.
How Can You Store Wedding Mementos?
Aside from having a wedding keepsake box, you can also store your wedding mementos through the following methods:
- Create a time capsule with several wedding items
- Turn your bouquet into art or accessories with epoxy resin
- Repurpose your bridal gown or keep it in a cool, dry, place for your future daughter
- Make a photobook
- Create a wedding video
- Make ornaments or home decors using some of your wedding items such as your veil, cake toppers, invitation cards, guest book, and table place cards
By preserving your wedding mementos in a wedding keepsake box or in any way you prefer, you will not just have a fading memory of your wonderful big day, but you will have actual items that you can feel and touch today, tomorrow, a year from now, ten, twenty, fifty years from now. And that is beautiful.